[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Ivriniel

I love the Avatar. A Numenorean Faithful, hey , who tried to stop the train wreck. He's as awesome as Silmarien always has been in my eye. What was his name in the Faithful's tradition as a 'Tar'? and have you read the stuff on the Caves of the Forgotten?

Thanks! Inziladûn/Tar-Palantir is one of my favorite non-LOTR characters. I always liked the fact that he tried so hard to turn his people aside from their path of destruction, and never wavered til his end. I like to think he was laughing at his nephew's eons-long stay in the underground waiting room.

Originally Posted by Ivriniel

The exact 'how' the Elves in Valinor were able to change and access some kind of innate? capacity to enter the Fey/Spirit world is never explained. Was it the 'Light of Aman'? Is this about The Two Trees, or was this about proximity to the Valar?

I think Aman was set apart because it was the one physical place on Arda where nothing died, and as such was in a different state from the lands outside. As the emissaries from the Valar noted to Númenor's Tar-Atanamir, it was the presence of the Valar there that "hallowed" the land and made it the Deathless, and dwelling there apparently had an effect on Elves that was permanent even after they left.

Originally Posted by Ivriniel

What happened to Frodo, Bilbo and Sam once they were immersed in the Light of Aman? Numenoreans were gifted with Life Extension by their proximity to Aman, weren't they? And did a Vala step on in and grant the Hobbits some kind of longevity? And how is an adaptation of the capacity to modify Mortal Men implied in the transition to Ringwraith, when a perverted Maia had modified this process?

Going back to the Elves who spoke with Tar-Atanamir, who told him that in Valinor mortals would be something like a moth exposed to a flame too bright, I think the hobbits (and Gimli too) would likely have seen their physical deaths accelerated in the Undying Lands (or Tol Eressëa) , but those deaths would have been peaceful and untroubled by sickness or pain. The Valar would not have given the hobbits immortality, as that was beyond their power and authority.
As for the Ringwraiths, like I said, I think their bogus immortality could only come through their complete immersion in Sauron's will and spirit, which was why they also could share in his power to do "sorcery", and the reason they finally died when his power was irrevocably weakened upon the One Ring's destruction.

Originally Posted by Ivriniel

The Elven Rings and what Galadriel did with Lothlorien (Frodo, for example, or was it Sam commented that the Seasons pass 'differently' in Lorien, not just an appreciation of 'time passing slowly', but some fundamental change in the effects of time on life's expression), imply that there are means of opening dimensions in Middle Earth to the same processes that modified the Elves when they became Eldar. I.e. rather than go to Aman, byo Aman-ising agent to Middle Earth, which is what Celebrimbor, Galadriel and co did to make life in Middle Earth more bearable for them, in their Banning or choice to remain.

In effect, Galadriel created a "little Aman" in Middle-earth, where the time flow was seemingly similar to that in Valinor. If the Fellowship had stayed there for a longer period of time, I wonder if they would have seen any effects of faster aging or "burning out' like mortals in Valinor. Also, I think Galadriel's ability to make that pocket of immortality in mortal lands might have been tied to her own birth in the Blessed Realm. Could anyone else in Middle-earth have made something like what Lórien became under her? Elrond obviously did not; Rivendell was a different animal.